In the houseware and furniture industries, most especially in making cast or molded products, the prior art includes highly compressed cast structures made from wood chips or flakes such as the molded product covered by Haataja U.S. Pat. No. 4,384,019 that discloses intersecting cast elongated members formed by generally aligned wood flakes compressed and bonded together with a binder, and integrally joined at the intersecting joint thereof by interleaved wood flakes; and hot and flat pressed medium-to-high density and strength cast products such as particleboards, chipboards or the like as disclosed in Hunt et. al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,246,310, Pringle U.S. Pat. No. 3,956,541, McKean U.S. Pat. No. 3,956,555, Fitzgerald et. al U.S. Pat. No. 5,106,666, BIÃ¼mer U.S. Pat. No. 5,059,466, and Shaner et. al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,361,612. These cast products, which are mostly in forms of particleboards or chipboards of planar structures, have smooth-textured flat surfaces as a result of molding process involving high pressing and heating operations.
Considering the inherent properties of the aforementioned particleboards or chipboards, industrial applications specifically those involving decorative arts or crafts as applied to furniture or architectural components or the like, that preferentially require natural looking surface textures and curvatures, would fall beyond their scope and teachings.
For reference to other prior art teachings on particleboard structures, attention is also directed to the McCoy U.S. Pat. No. 3,857,752, Sears et. al U.S. Pat. No. 3,441,959 and Crivelli U.S. Pat. No. 5,258,222.